The make-or-break moment for Richard Nixon came during the presidential election of 1952. He was a hotshot rookie Senator from California, and General Dwight D. Eisenhower had chosen him as his vice-presidential running mate. The ticket had been officially nominated at the Republican National Convention. Then news broke that Nixon had a secret fund created by various wealthy friends and supporters. It was not the biggest scandal that had ever taken place in American politics, but it was serious enough to embarrass Eisenhower, who sent signals to Nixon that he wanted him to withdraw from the ticket. Not only that, but Ike presumed Nixon would resign from the Senate as well. Had Nixon done so, he would have become a small footnote in history. But Nixon was way too bold, way too cunning to slink away with his tail between his legs. He instead booked a live television appearance and gave what would become known as the “Checkers” speech. More than 60 million Americans tuned in. It was the largest television event ever aired, to that date.

While Nixon was explaining his finances in great detail to the American public, he uttered a bunch of corny lines, including, “Pat doesn’t have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat, and I always tell her she’d look good in anything.” He also said that one of his benefactors had sent the family a cocker spaniel that one of his daughters had named Checkers, “and you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog, and I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re gonna keep it.” Nixon concluded his remarks with a call to action. He told viewers to contact the Republican National Committee and tell them (not Ike!) whether or not he should withdraw from the nomination. And of course the phones rang off the hook in favor of Nixon remaining on the ticket. He went on to serve eight years as Vice President under Ike. In 1960 Vice President Nixon ran for President and lost in a nail-biter to JFK. Two years later Nixon ran for governor of California — and lost. Then, in 1968, he ran for President once again and won. Then he got re-elected in 1972 in a landslide. And of course, two years later, he became the only U.S. president in history to resign, because of the Watergate scandal.

Richard Milhous Nixon, also known as Dick Nixon, also known as Tricky Dick, was born in 1913 in Yorba Linda, California. His childhood was just as dismal as you would imagine. He wasn’t born in a log cabin, but he would have been born in one if log cabins still existed in the early 20^th century. The family was poor. His father was a citrus farmer who was unable to turn a profit despite being in Southern California. He had three brothers, two of whom died of very young of tuberculosis. To his credit, Nixon made the most of his circumstances. He excelled in a number of extracurricular activities in high school and college, including music, theater and football. After graduating from Whittier College he attended Duke University on a scholarship and earned a law degree. He married Pat, whose maiden name was Thelma Ryan. They had two daughters. In the early 1940s the couple moved to the nation’s capital, where Nixon worked for the federal government. During World War II Nixon served in the Navy and was stationed in the South Pacific. He received several medals and commendations. While stationed overseas during the war he ran a concession stand.

After the war Nixon returned to California, where he practiced law and sought employment with the federal government. In 1946, with the backing of a group supporters called the “Committee of 100” or the “Amateurs” (a precursor of Tea Party in more modern times) Nixon ran for Congress against a five-term entrenched Democrat and won. During the campaign Nixon falsely accused his opponent of being in bed with Communists. As a freshman congressman Nixon joined the House Un-American Activities Committee and began hunting for Communists in government agencies. One of Nixon’s targets was Alger Hiss, who may or may not have been a spy for the Soviets. Hiss had been accused by Whittaker Chambers, who was an unreliable source because he kept changing his story. According to the book, Hiss was indeed a spy. But he was not ever convicted of espionage, only perjury.

When he became President, Nixon inherited an unwinnable war in Vietnam. Rather than finding a way to end the fighting, he instead expanded the conflict into Laos and Cambodia, destabilizing those countries and making everything worse. He and Henry Kissinger, who was Nixon’s Secretary of State as well as his National Security Advisor, dropped lots of bombs on all three countries. All the while he was lying to the American people about it.

He also lied to the American people about Watergate. The scandal first surfaced in 1972, during Nixon’s re-election campaign, when a bunch of dudes got arrested breaking into the offices of Democratic National Headquarters to bug the phones. Watergate is the name of the large complex of office buildings and residential apartments that housed the Democratic offices at the time.

Like a dirty snowball rolling down a hill, the story just got bigger and bigger. At the height of the drama, the Watergate matter was being investigated by a federal Grand Jury, Senate and House committees, and a Special Prosecutor, Archibald Cox, whom Nixon fired in October 1973, in what became known as the Saturday Night Massacre.

It was the Senate committee that found out about the tapes. Yes, in the immortal words of Dick Cavett, Nixon had been “bugging himself,” and there was a huge fight over the tapes that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ordered Nixon to turn them over. The tapes revealed that Nixon had in fact been involved in a cover-up from the beginning, and that he had been lying about it from the get-go. There was also an 18-and-a-half-minute gap on one of the tapes that Nixon probably erased himself, the contents of which, to this day, are yet unknown.

In late July 1974, the House committee recommended three articles of impeachment against Nixon, who resigned in a nationally televised address to the nation on August 9, 1974. Had he not resigned, Nixon most certainly would have been impeached by the full House, convicted in the Senate trial, and removed from office.

In the aftermath of Watergate, literally dozens of Nixon’s men would be convicted of crimes and serve time in prison. Chief among them were Nixon’s 1972 campaign manager, who had been Attorney General, John Mitchell; his Chief of Staff, H. R. “Bob” Haldeman; his domestic affairs advisor, John Ehrlichman; his White House Counsel, John Dean; and many, many others.

It was Gerald R. Ford, not the man who had been elected and re-elected with Nixon, who became our nation’s 38^th President. That’s because in Nixon’s first — and worst — presidential decision, he had chosen Spiro Agnew as his vice-presidential running mate. As Governor of Maryland and as Vice President of the United States, Agnew had been taking bribes. This happened during Watergate but was not connected to Watergate. When caught in 1973 he was forced to resign, and Nixon named Congressman Ford to replace him.

All of this and more is described in “Richard Nixon: The Life,” by John A. Farrell, published in 2017. This presidential biography clocks in at 700-plus pages including notes and bibliography. I found the book an absolute pleasure to read. In my view, the author was more or less fair to Nixon. I happen to already know a great deal about Nixon’s presidency and about Watergate, but in this book I learned a great deal about Nixon’s long and extensive career in public life before he became President.

Also documented in the book is what is known today as the “Chennault affair.” According to this book and other sources, Nixon sent Anna Chennault, who was working on his 1968 presidential election campaign, to Paris to sabotage peace negotiations being conducted by the Johnson administration and the North Vietnamese, thus prolonging the Vietnam War. It’s yet another example of Nixon’s malfeasance.

Here is a bit more about our nation’s 37^th President:

• He was a Quaker.
• He played piano.
• Both of Nixon’s daughters had notable weddings. Julie married David Eisenhower, grandson of the former President, at Marble Collegiate Church in New York City in 1966, before Nixon’s presidency. Then during Nixon’s presidency Tricia married Edward Cox in the White House Rose Garden, in 1971.
• Nixon has been described as being paranoid, reclusive, anti-social and withdrawn.
• During the Watergate years many reported that he appeared to have been drinking excessively.
• Also during Watergate he made a high-profile trip to China, where he palled around with a bunch of Communists.
• According to the book, he gave his staff strange orders. He presumed they would ignore the really outrageous requests, but he expected everyone to know the difference between a real order and one not to be acted upon.
• He hated journalists and viewed the press and as enemies.
• He had a trademark gesture in which he raised his arms up in the air and made a “V for victory” sign with both hands. It also looked like the peace sign, except Nixon would never let himself be associated with “hippie culture.”
• As President, Nixon presided over the elimination of the gold standard, and he issued wage and price controls in an effort to tamp down inflation. He managed to keep the economy going, but, according to the book, this only forestalled the inevitable downturn that his successors would have to deal with, to their own detriment.
• He called for federal healthcare legislation that was, more or less, just like the Affordable Care Act that would be enacted decades later.
• He appeared on the popular TV show “Laugh-In.”
• He and his wife are mentioned by name in the Rolling Stones song “Rip This Joint,” the second song on the band’s classic 1972 double album “Exile on Main St.”
• He’s also mentioned in the 1975 David Bowie song “Young Americans.”
• And he’s referenced indirectly in Queen’s 1978 single “Bicycle Race.”
• And he’s mentioned in the 1978 movie “Grease.”
• He got the nickname “Tricky Dick” from Helen Gahagan Douglas, his Democratic opponent for Senate in 1950. He had dishonestly accused her of being a Communist who was “pink right down to her underwear.”
• After his loss in the California governor’s race in 1962, he spoke to reporters and made a number of unhinged remarks, including, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”
• In 1973 he was being investigated for tax fraud, unrelated to Watergate, and spoke to reporters in yet another angry, unhinged rant in which be claimed to have never obstructed justice, and then he said this memorable line: “I welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I am not a crook.”
• After resigning from office but before leaving the White House in the helicopter, he spoke to reporters and made even more unhinged remarks, including this bizarre statement: “Others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.”

After his presidency, Nixon returned to California before moving to New York City and eventually settling in New Jersey. In retirement, he wrote several books and tried to re-invent himself as an elder statesman, which he wasn’t. Pat died in 1993, and Nixon died in 1994. And good riddance to him, too. In my view, he was a bad man and a bad president. Our world today is still dealing with much of the harm Nixon unleashed, and in my opinion we would all be much better off if he had exited from national politics in 1952, as Ike had wanted.

Lyndon Baines Johnson, also known as LBJ, was our nation’s 36^th President. He was from Texas. He was elected Vice President under John F. Kennedy in 1960 and became president on Nov. 22, 1963, when JFK was assassinated in Dallas. Johnson took the oath of office in a somber, quickly thrown together ceremony aboard Air Force One before the plane took off to return to Washington, as documented in the famous photograph. The following year LBJ was elected to the presidency in his own right, winning in a landslide over the right-wing Republican candidate, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. In the 1964 presidential election, Johnson received 61.1 percent of the popular vote vs. 38.5 percent for Goldwater. In the Electoral College that year, it was 486 votes for Johnson and 52 for Goldwater.

Politically, President Johnson was a liberal Democrat. His legacy is still with us today. He admired what President Franklin D. Roosevelt had done for our country, and he wanted to build upon that legacy. FDR had used the label “New Deal,” and LBJ coined the terms “war on poverty” and the “Great Society” to sell his proposed government programs to the American people. He signed massive amounts of new legislation into law, including federal aid to schools, consumer protections, environmental regulations, and funding for mass transit, public broadcasting, food stamps and housing. He also signed into law the Freedom of Information Act, plus gun control, immigration reform, employment nondiscrimination and protections for people with physical disabilities. Johnson’s biggest domestic achievement was the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid. It took a considerable amount of political skill and arm-twisting to get these programs enacted.

LBJ invested even more of his political capital to improve racial justice in our country. He got the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed, and unlike previous laws these had real meaning for American citizens with black skin. For the first time in our nation’s history, under federal law, black people were finally able to enjoy equal access to schools and public accommodations and — most importantly — to vote. Additionally, the Medicare law was written in such a way as to prohibit racial discrimination in hospitals and doctors offices. This had immense effect. And in a milestone for the Supreme Court, Johnson appointed Thurgood Marshall an Associate Justice, thus breaking the color barrier on the nation’s highest court.

Sadly, it was also during the Johnson presidency that American involvement in Vietnam spiraled out of control. The North Vietnamese, who were Communists, wanted one unified country under Communist rule. The capital of North Vietnam was Hanoi. We were on the side of the South Vietnamese, whose capital was Saigon. The Viet Cong, a Communist military organization, was all over South Vietnam. The fear was that if Vietnam went Communist, it would cause a “domino effect” that would be impossible to stop. The Soviet Union and China would then become the world’s dominant countries, and the American capitalist system would wane. No, we could not let that happen, the thinking went. We had to make a stand in Vietnam. Our involvement had started under Eisenhower and Kennedy with a few thousand military “advisers,” but that term was really a euphemism.

It was not even a declared war. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, passed by Congress in August 1964 in response to an attack on a U.S warship that was either real or conjured up, gave the President the authority to escalate. Gradually over time, we sent more and more ground troops to Southeast Asia, eventually hundreds of thousands, most of whom were drafted. The problem was that no matter how much support we gave them, no matter how many troops we sent, no matter how many bombs we dropped against the North Vietnamese, the war was unwinnable. The South Vietnamese were simply not able to form a viable government of their own. Those who were in charge of the government in the South were corrupt and incompetent. They oppressed Buddhists. And the North Vietnamese were not going to give up, no way, never. Things just kept getting worse and worse. And as the situation worsened, LBJ’s popularity fell with the American public. Johnson had wanted to pass more domestic initiatives, but the war in Vietnam was sapping too many of our resources. He had to call for tax increases.

In January 1968, the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong launched the Tet Offensive, so named for the Vietnamese New Year holiday, in which they attacked a number of sites all over South Vietnam. Although it was not a success for them militarily, it had tremendous ramifications because it affirmed that the war had become a stalemate. All during this time, the anti-war movement gathered momentum and became more and more unstoppable. There were protests on college campuses. By March 1968 Johnson, with his approval rating in the gutter, decided not to run for re-election. He made the announcement on national television. His exact words: “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

This comes at the end of “Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President,” by Robert Dallek, the subject of today’s book report. This biography, at 375 pages, is a “Readers Digest condensed” version of the same author’s two-volume biography of LBJ. I selected this book because I did not want to read thousands and thousands of pages on Johnson. There is also yet another, even more famous multi-volume biography of Johnson by Robert Caro, which I am skipping because of its daunting length. (So far Caro has written FOUR very long books about LBJ, with a fifth on the way!)

The best part of this book by Dallek, the one I read, came at the end, in which the author offers a thoughtful analysis of the Johnson presidency, and Johnson the man. But what I learned most came in its early chapters about LBJ’s upbringing and his rise to power. LBJ came from humble roots. His family was poor. He was born in 1908 in the remote town of Stonewall, Texas. During and immediately after college he was a schoolteacher. He taught in small towns, and his students were poor and disadvantaged. He would think about them often during his entire political career. In 1931 Johnson moved to Washington, D.C., to serve as an aide to Richard M. Kleberg, who had just been elected to the House of Representatives. The Congressman was lazy, and so Johnson actually did all the work for him behind the scenes! He put in long hours and learned the ins and outs of how things were done in the nation’s capital. He even caught the attention of the newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1937 Johnson ran for his own seat in the House and won, representing the 10^th District, which included Austin.

Johnson also had a brief stint in the military during World War II. He entered the Naval Reserve in 1940. After Pearl Harbor, FDR sent him to Australia, in part to be his eyes and ears. Johnson, who was a sitting U.S. Congressman, was sent on one combat air mission against the Japanese before returning stateside to resume his career in Congress.

In 1941 Johnson ran for the U.S. Senate but lost in the primary. He tried again in 1948, and this time he won the primary and then in the general. Over the next dozen years, Johnson would come to dominate the Senate. He became Senate Majority Whip for the Democrats, then Senate Minority Leader, then Senate Majority Leader, which is the same position Mitch McConnell has today. In 1960 Johnson tried for the Democratic nomination for president, but Kennedy prevailed and then selected Johnson as his running mate. After he took office JFK asked Vice President Johnson to be chairman of the space council. At the time there was a “space race” going on between the United States and the Soviet Union. Vice President Johnson also went on a number of overseas trips, in which he passed out pens and other souvenirs.

Here are a few more notes about LBJ:

• He could be physically crude, and he had a dominating and forceful personality. He employed what came to be known as “the treatment,” which was a combination of intimidation, flattery, forceful persuasion and getting in a person’s physical space, to strong-arm politicians into voting in a certain way or supporting a particular cause.
• Johnson also used racially insensitive language. There are tapes. He can be heard using racial epithets when speaking to Senators when pressuring them to go along with his civil rights legislation. According to the author, LBJ used such language not because he was racist himself but because it was the way Southerners talked back then and a way to get through to them.
• According to political lore, it was the passage of the civil rights laws in the early 1960s that caused the South to swing Republican. Johnson even predicted that this would happen.
• During Johnson’s presidency, there were inner city riots in Los Angeles, Detroit and other cities in response to police violence against blacks. As we know now, the causes of these uprisings were very serious and very real. The only difference back then is that we did not have the cellphone videos.
• One of Johnson’s first acts as president was to appoint a panel of distinguished Americans to investigate the assassination of JFK and present a report to the American public. This became known as the Warren Commission, named after its chairman, Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the United States. Also on the commission was Congressman Gerald R. Ford of Michigan. Their conclusion — correct, in my opinion — was that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
• During the 1964 presidential race against Goldwater, the Johnson campaign ran an ad on television showing a little girl picking petals from a daisy, then the camera zooms in on her eye and a nuclear bomb goes off. The ad was shocking and aired only once.
• As mentioned, Medicare and Medicaid ranked among Johnson’s crowning achievements. In 1965 he invited former President Harry S. Truman to the signing of the Medicare Bill. Truman had been an advocate of universal health care. The ceremony took place in Independence, Missouri, Truman’s hometown.
• When Johnson announced he was not going to seek another term of office in 1968 it looked like Robert F. Kennedy would win the Democratic nomination and go on to win the presidency. After Bobby was assassinated, Vice President Hubert Humphrey went on to receive the Democratic nomination, and he lost to Richard Nixon.
• After LBJ left the presidency and returned to Texas, he grew long hair!
• LBJ had married Claudia Alta Taylor, more commonly known as Lady Bird, and they had two daughters.
• Everything in Johnson’s life that could be named had the initials LBJ. This included his daughters Lynda Bird Johnson and Luci Baines Johnson, his ranch and even the family pets.
• Johnson bought local radio and television stations in Texas, and the profits and proceeds from these provided enough money for him to retire comfortably and provide for Lady Bird after his death.
• LBJ died January 22, 1973, at age 64.

One more, final note about Johnson: He was president when I was born, but I have absolutely no recollection of him at all in my own personal memories.

Clint Hill was a Secret Service agent assigned to protect Jacqueline Kennedy. He’s the one who jumped on the back of the car in Dallas. He’s done a number of television interviews over the years, and he also wrote a few books about his experiences, including “Mrs. Kennedy and Me,” about the four years he spent with the first lady and her family.

Through Mr. Hill, we learn a bit more about Mrs. Kennedy and her day-to-day life both in and out of the public eye. He narrates about life in the White House, various private family retreats to Florida and Massachusetts, as well as high-profile trips overseas. Many of the stories in this book are fun to read about. The chapters about the assassination come at the very end, and some of the details, which are also documented elsewhere, are quite grim. (Hill also wrote “Five Days in November,” which is an hour-by-hour account of the trip to Texas that ended in tragedy for Mrs. Kennedy and the whole country, which is another worthwhile read, in my opinion.)

Two of the more peculiar incidents described in the book both involve Aristotle Onassis, the wealthy and famous Greek who would one day become Jackie’s second husband. Jackie made two solo trips to Greece during JFK’s presidency. According to the book, Hill was summoned to the Oval Office before the first trip and told by the President himself that whatever happens, to keep Jackie away from Onassis. But on her second trip Jackie stayed with Onassis on his yacht, this time with the full blessing of JFK. Hill says he was puzzled but that he never felt it his place to ask for explanation.

Here are a few more notes about Jackie Kennedy:

• Like her husband, she came from a wealthy family.
• She was beautiful, glamorous and immensely popular.
• Daughter Caroline Kennedy was a toddler when JFK was elected, and John Jr. was born in the weeks after the election in 1960. Another child, Patrick, was born in the summer of 1963 but died.
• Mrs. Kennedy liked to exercise every day, and some of her favorite physical activities included horseback riding and waterskiing.
• She renovated the White House and then gave a tour that was nationally televised.
• She was fluent in French, which helped endear her to foreign dignitaries on the Kennedys’ trip to Paris.
• On the Texas trip, while in San Antonio, Mrs. Kennedy addressed the League of United Latin American Citizens in Spanish and received an enthusiastic response.

Also during JFK’s presidency, Jackie helped arrange a visit of the Mona Lisa to the United States. I’ll have more to say about that most famous of all paintings in some upcoming, non-presidential book reports.

Top Photo: Mrs. Kennedy in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House. (Robert Knudsenderivative, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

John F. Kennedy, also known as JFK, also known as Jack Kennedy, was our nation’s 35th president. Among his most lasting achievements were the founding of the Peace Corps and his fostering of the space program. He also prevented nuclear annihilation. He was a war hero. He was young and energetic and had movie-star good looks. His wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, also known as Jackie, and later Jackie O, was enormously popular in her own right. Kennedy was the immediate successor to Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was a Democrat. He defeated then Vice President Richard M. Nixon in the presidential election of 1960. Three years later, in an event that shocked the world, Kennedy was shot to death in front of thousands of people in Dallas. His assassination took place on this day (Nov. 22) in 1963. Upon JFK’s death, Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in as President.

Today’s book report is about “An Unfinished Life — John. F. Kennedy: 1917-1963,” by Robert Dallek. This biography, at 718 pages of text, focuses mostly on the Kennedy presidency. There is almost nothing in the book about the assassination itself, although there is plenty of information about the many issues Kennedy was wrestling with in the weeks and months leading up to his trip to Texas. The author speculates about what kind of president JFK might have become had he won re-election to a second term.

As president, Kennedy faced a number of domestic and international challenges, including the economy, civil rights, dealing with the Russians in post World War II Europe, and the immense challenges that the existence of nuclear weapons posed to our country and to the world at large. It was the height of the Cold War, and Kennedy clashed with Nikita Kruschev, the leader of the USSR.

Both his biggest failure and his greatest success while in office involved Cuba. Shortly after Kennedy took office, he authorized a covert operation intended to remove Fidel Castro from power. The plan, which had been formulated during Eisenhower’s presidency, was to use CIA operatives and anti-Castro Cuban exiles to invade the island, where they would presumably be greeted as liberators (sound familiar?), thus causing Castro to be toppled from power. Of course this did not go as planned. What became known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion turned into a massive disaster, ultimately strengthening Castro’s hand. Kennedy could have escalated matters by ordering a full-scale military assault, as many of his military advisors had presumed would happen, but to his credit Kennedy accepted the loss and took responsibility for it.

The following year, in October 1962, the Soviet Union began installing missiles in Cuba that they could have used to strike the United States with nuclear weapons. Some of Kennedy’s military advisors wanted us to bomb Cuba and ask questions later, or to launch a ground invasion. Anyone who has seen the 1964 Stanley Kubrick film “Dr. Strangelove” might remember how crazy for war some of the military chiefs were. According to Dallek, at least one of them was drawn from real life. Instead of a belligerent military response, which in all likelihood would have sparked all-out nuclear war, Kennedy decided to use a naval blockade, which he called a “quarantine,” along with diplomacy, which turned into quite forceful diplomacy involving the United Nations, to get the missiles out of Cuba. It worked. In my view, it was Kennedy’s astute, intelligent and well-reasoned leadership during the Cuban Missile Crisis that prevented unspeakable death and destruction.

The book starts at the beginning of the 35th president’s life. As we learn, John F. Kennedy was born 1917 to a famous and wealthy family. Both of JFK’s grandfathers had been prominent in local and state politics. JFK was the second oldest of nine children of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. Joe Sr. was a successful businessman who became immensely wealthy through many ventures as well as by investing in the stock market. He was also a prominent Democrat. President Franklin D. Roosevelt named him the first chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and later appointed him ambassador to Great Britain. In 1938, as Britain was appeasing Hitler, all 11 Kennedys went to London, and they were there when Nazi Germany invaded Poland and World War II broke out. But Joe Sr. was an isolationist, and when he said some things in the press that were not in keeping with U.S. policy at the time, FDR recalled him.

Back home, after Kennedy graduated from Harvard in 1940, he attempted to join the U.S. Army as an officer, but he was disqualified due to health reasons. The following year, he tried again, this time with the Navy. His father pulled some strings to get him in despite a bad back, and JFK eventually assumed command of various PT Boats. In 1943 he was commanding the PT-109 in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific theater when it was struck and destroyed by a Japanese ship. He led himself and the 10 surviving crew members to safety, but it took many days for them to be rescued. At one point Kennedy swam 2 miles through the open ocean to seek help for his men, despite what must have been excruciating physical pain, not to mention extreme hunger and thirst. He was later honored with various medals, including a Purple Heart, for his service.

After the war Kennedy briefly became a newspaper correspondent before entering into politics. He first ran for Congress from Massachusetts in 1946, with the backing of his father, who poured massive amounts of cash into this and subsequent campaigns. Kennedy served three terms in the House. Then, in 1952 he was elected to the United States Senate, defeating Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. He was re-elected to the Senate in 1958 before running for President in 1960.

Here are some additional revelations from this book. Before and during his presidency, Kennedy experienced many health problems that were not disclosed to the American people. When he was still in college he was frequently hospitalized. Today many of his health problems have been attributed to Addison’s disease, which is a disorer of the adrenal glands, however JFK’s health issues were much more complicated than that. According to the book, he experienced lifelong gastrointestinal problems and chronic back pain. He was frequently medicated with steroids and other drugs. Other revelations in the book involve Kennedy’s sex life. Before and during his marriage to Jackie, JFK was a womanizer. He had many conquests. One of his many affairs might have been with Marilyn Monroe. The also author says that the infamous White House taping system, which would later result in Nixon’s downfall, was installed by Kennedy! There were even missing tapes, he says, speculating that they might have been destroyed to cover up dalliances with Marilyn, or perhaps a secret plot against Castro, or perhaps details of JFK’s health problems.

More notes about JFK, his family and his presidency:

• Kennedy wrote several books, the most famous of which is “Profiles In Courage,” which was probably ghost written. He also published “Why England Slept,” which was his college thesis, about Britain failing to strengthen its military in the aftermath of the first world war even as Germany was becoming more of a menace.
• Kennedy was not considered a true liberal by Democratic Party standard-bearers such as Eleanor Roosevelt and Adlai Stevenson.
• Unlike his father, who was an isolationist, Kennedy was a globalist.
• JFK traveled extensively before becoming president, including all over Europe and South America. He was curious about the world.
• Civil rights leaders were frustrated by lack of progress during his presidential administration.
• The civil rights march on Washington in which Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I have a dream” speech took place when Kennedy was president.
• He was Catholic, which at the time of his election was a huge issue.
• Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, who became Speaker of the House, was successor to JFK in his House seat.
• As president, Kennedy made a visit to West Berlin and spoke before a massive crowd.
• The presidential couple had a daughter, Caroline Kennedy, who would one day serve as ambassador to Japan. Today she is their only surviving descendant.
• Their son, John F. Kennedy Jr., also known as John-John, who was just turning 3 years old when his father was killed, became a lawyer and magazine publisher and might have gone into politics himself one day. But he died in a plane crash along with his wife and sister-in-law in 1999.
• John and Jackie also had a daughter who was stillborn, and a son who died in infancy.
• In order of birth starting with the oldest, the Kennedy siblings consisted of Joseph aka Joe Jr.; John; Rosemary; Kathleen; Eunice; Patricia; Robert aka Bobby; Jean; and Edward aka Ted.
• Joe Jr. was killed during World War II. Kathleen was killed in a plane crash in 1948. Rosemary was developmentally disabled and, sadly, she spent most of her life institutionalized.
• According to Kennedy family lore, Joe Jr. was the one who was destined to become president someday, but when the oldest son was killed during World War II the mantle fell upon John.
• Eunice married Sargent Shriver, who helped found the Peace Corps and who was George McGovern’s vice presidential running mate in 1972. One of their children is Maria Shriver, the television journalist who was married to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Eunice founded the Special Olympics.
• Patricia was married to the actor Peter Lawford.
• Robert F. Kennedy, also known as RFK or Bobby Kennedy, was JFK’s Attorney General and one of his closest political advisors. Bobby clashed with LBJ. In 1965 he became a Senator from New York, and he was running for the Democratic nomination for president when he was assassinated in 1968 the night he won the California primary.
• Jean served as ambassador to Ireland and died this past June.
• Edward Kennedy, more commonly known as Ted, became a Senator from Massachusetts during the JFK presidency. He served for 47 years until his death from brain cancer in 2009.
• John F. Kennedy was the eighth and most recent president to die in office and the fourth to be killed. Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield and William McKinley were also assassinated. William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Warren G. Harding and Franklin D. Roosevelt died of natural causes.

As I mentioned the Dallek book does not delve into the assassination itself, but each year around this time a number of TV specials about that day in Dallas are shown on the Smithsonian Channel, the History Channel and other channels. I’ve learned a great deal from many of these documentaries, and they stand in stark contrast to the 1991 Oliver Stone movie “JFK,” which in my opinion is total rubbish.

One much more worthwhile film about Kennedy is “Thirteen Days,” from 2000, with Kevin Costner. Although the movie is a bit off in some of the details and personnel involved, in my opinion it does a good job of portraying the skill and thoughtfulness that JFK used to avert nuclear war. It was, in my opinion, Kennedy’s finest hour.